Ritual sacrifices of ancient China

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In ancient times, human sacrifice was considered the most effective way to reach the heavenly (or underground) office, so ritual killings were widespread almost everywhere.

One way or another, all ancient civilizations distinguished themselves, but the first on the list are usually recalled the peoples of pre-Columbian America - the Incas, Mayans and especially the Aztecs, who turned human sacrifice into grandiose ritual performances. The second in line will most likely be the Celts. Behind them are the Vikings and the Germans.

But scientists only recently learned about the terrible details of the practice of sacrifices in the territory of ancient China. When in 1928 excavations began in Yinxu (literally - "the ruins of the Yin state"), few people expected that the work would take decades, and the finds would literally be terribly interesting.

Yinxu is the ruins of the last capital of the Shang Dynasty, which ruled China from the 16th to the 11th century BC. The Shang is not the most ancient Chinese dynasty, but the first, the existence of which is confirmed by both written sources and numerous archaeological finds.

At one time, the reason for excavations in Yinxu was unusual artifacts found here back in 1899: fortune-telling bones. Rather, mysterious old bones with inscriptions were found here before, but they were used in a completely different area - as a miracle cure for malaria and stab wounds.

Hieroglyphs carved on ox bones and turtle shells are now recognized as the oldest form of Chinese writing. Deciphering the inscriptions helped to restore the complete tree of the rulers of the Shang dynasty and, among other things, to find out very unusual details about the life of the state that existed 3100-3600 years ago.

As the excavation progressed, scientists were able to correlate the content of the oracle bones with archaeological finds at the site. The result was shocking.

Archaeologists have discovered a huge number of mass graves in Yinxu, neatly located throughout the ancient capital. Most of the graves contained the remains of 10, 30 and 50 people. Scientists have noticed that the inscriptions on the oracle bones mention the same numbers when it comes to human sacrifices in exchange for the opinion of higher powers on a particular issue.

According to last year's data, the total number of sacrificial human remains found at the “ruins of Yin” reached 10 thousand. Over the past year, the numbers have changed: now scientists are talking about 13 thousand people who were killed during ritual ceremonies and buried in Yinxu. Not all at once, of course: researchers believe that such a number of victims "accumulated" over the 255 years that the capital of the Shang dynasty was in this place.

“On the territory of the royal necropolis, we found the remains of at least 3,000 sacrificed people, even more - during excavations of the royal palace,” says archaeologist Christina Cheng

And this is only in Yinxu, the last capital of the Shang dynasty. Researchers found similar mass graves with mutilated human remains in other cities of the ancient Chinese state.

According to archaeological finds, human sacrifice was practiced in ancient China for thousands of years during three dynasties - Xia, Shang and Zhou, successively replacing each other. The most active "donors", by all indications, were the Shan rulers. On average, each sacrificial ceremony claimed the lives of fifty people. During the largest sacrifice, 339 people were killed at a time.

According to Christina Cheng, there were two main types of human sacrifice in the Shang era: Rensheng and Rensun. In the graves of Rensun victims, archaeologists often find exquisite burial gifts, and the context of the burials suggests that the victims of Rensun were mainly servants or relatives of the late aristocrats and influential officials.

Remains of Rensheng victims look quite different (this term is almost literally translated as “human sacrifice”): almost all of them are terribly mutilated, bodies are buried in group graves, and burial artifacts are either absent or very few.

Nearly all Renshengs were the victims of predictions, highly demanded in the Shang era.

Since the connection between divination bones and human sacrifices is not the most obvious, it is worth explaining exactly how the divination process took place. Each of the kings of the Shang dynasty constantly had vital questions: for example, whether it would be desirable for the spirits to save the ruler from an unbearable toothache or to grant a rich harvest.

The fortuneteller cut out (later - wrote down) the question on an appropriate medium (using the scapula of a bull or plastron, the lower shell of a turtle), then heated the bone or shell until cracks appeared, and then, according to the pattern of cracks, "translated" the answer from the spirit world. Usually, the answer (result), as well as the date, were recorded on the media with a question - everything is official, even everyday, for archives and reporting.

Human sacrifices were an integral part of the process: their number, as well as the method of killing most pleasing to the spirits (scientists counted 12 different ways, a separate term was used for each), were often indicated in the question itself. For clarity, here are some examples of questions from fortune-telling bones:

- Will the spirits accept a sacrifice in the amount of twenty people killed by the "tan" method? [Recorded Result] Thirty men were presented to the spirits, and the outcome was extremely favorable.

- His Majesty is to behead the sacrificial people. Will the perfume approve? [Recorded Result] On the day of yǐchǒu (date), human sacrifices were made using the Fa method, and a cow was also killed.

- Will sacrifices be accepted on the day of wù (date), killed by burial alive? [Recorded Score] It started raining on bǐngwǔ (date) day.

- We ask: will the spirits give rain if on the day of bǐngxū (date) we sacrifice women by burning them?

- Will the answer be favorable if on the day of xīnyǒu (date) we make sacrifices by means of exsanguination?

The mentioned method "tan" means killing by beating a person to death, the "fa" method means cutting off the head (decapitation was the most popular, judging by the records on the fortune-telling bones).

A complete list of methods of executing victims, compiled by scientists on the deciphering of oracle bones, looks like this:

• decapitation
• cutting / cutting the body in half
• quartering
• gradually cutting off body parts to death
• beating to death
• exsanguination
• burial alive
• drowning
• burning
• boiling water
• death from the scorching sun
• "Drying" of already dead open bodies under the sun to the state of jerky

Additionally, there was death from any of the above methods, followed by leaving the bodies without burial …

The choice of one of the 12 methods of sacrifice depended on the addressee and purpose. The addressees were the spirits of ancestors as sacred guardians and protectors of the state, ruler, family, etc., and the spirits of nature - they were addressed mainly on weather and agricultural issues. Judging by the statistics of conversions, the cult of ancestors in the Shang era surpassed the worship of natural deities in importance and intensity.

The forces of nature usually relied on victims killed by "natural" methods: burning (fire), drowning (water), burial alive (earth). Ancestral spirits demanded more blood in exchange for blessings, protection from disasters, support and good luck in business. For them, the most preferred methods of killing were decapitation, dismemberment, beating to death, cutting off the legs, exsanguination, boiling in boiling water, "drying" in the sun, and the like.

Women were often sacrificed to the spirits of nature, to the spirits of ancestors - men, mostly prisoners from hostile tribes. So the donor solved three problems at once: for example, having beheaded several dozen prisoners, he showed due respect to the ancestors, received an answer to his question and made his enemies fearful. Pragmatic and efficient.

Captured men and women from tribes warring with the Shang are often mentioned in texts on fortune-telling bones, often even indicating the tribe - for example, "Will the spirits please the sacrifice of three men of the Qiang tribe and two cows killed by cutting off the limbs?"

Anthropologists have found that most of the Yinxu sacrificial remains belong to men between the ages of 15 and 35. At the same time, the future victims lived until the time of the murder in Yinxu for at least several years - long enough for the local diet to affect the small bones of the skeleton, but did not have time to affect the large ones.

Modern experts note the extreme cruelty and complete disregard for human life in ancient China - "people were sacrificed in almost the same ways as animals, in the eyes of the ruling elite the difference between a slave and cattle was not great," said one of the linguists studying the texts on fortune-telling bones.

At the same time, cruel mass sacrifices speak of the extreme piety of the Shang rulers - in the context of their world and their time, they performed godly (pre-and nature-pleasing) deeds, showing an example of piety and earnest reverence for higher powers.

Chinese experts usually emphasize that the phenomenon of human sacrifice was widespread everywhere, and ancient Chinese customs are only part of the worldwide practice. A kind of hint: they say, first look at your story.

Mass ritual sacrifices in China fizzled out around 700 BC, and not at all because of the increasing humanity of society. A simpler and more widely available method of fortune-telling appeared, which does not require blood and is still very popular: this is the famous "Book of Changes", the I Ching, which saved thousands and thousands of human lives. When you want to know your future according to the I Ching, remember the story we have told.